


Old Bridges and Astrolabes

by greyathena



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 18:37:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4030381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyathena/pseuds/greyathena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezekiel invites Cassandra on an oddly well-planned mission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Bridges and Astrolabes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgentCK8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCK8/gifts).



"So my book gave me this case. In Florence."

Cassandra looked up from her reading and smiled wistfully. "Wow. That sounds nice. I mean. As long as no one's getting horribly killed or something."

"Yeah." For some reason Ezekiel was looking everywhere other than directly at her. "I've been there once, but I was kind of only focused on the Uffizi, 'cause . . ."

"Right." Her smile widened to a grin. "Well, remember Eve said the next time you get arrested she's letting Charlene come to bail you out."

"I'm not going to steal anything!" He was trying to look indignant, but not pulling it off. "I think the case involves the Museo Galileo."

She closed her book, now completely interested. "They're having an astrobiology exhibit right now! I saw it in a magazine."

"I thought maybe you'd like to come with me."

"Me?" She wanted to say _yes_ so loud the Library would echo, but instead she said, "If it's art it's really more Jacob's thing? Or Eve, she actually speaks Italian."

"It's tourist Florence, people speak English." He shrugged that concern away. "Anyway they're both a lot less likely to get excited about Galileo than you."

"That's true." She set the book aside. "Okay! Thanks."

She took Ezekiel's arm as they stepped through the back door into . . . pitch darkness.

"I think it's a closet," Ezekiel said. She held to his arm as he led her across the room, fumbling until he found a door and cracked it open slightly. "Yup. We must have come through into a cabinet or something in the closet. Come on."

"Where are we?" she whispered, still not really able to see anything but his back and a strip of light as he carefully checked for witnesses.

"Gelato shop." He stepped fully out of the closet and tugged her along. "I think I can figure out where we are once we get out to the street."

The shop smelled incredible - which made no sense, since gelato was cold - but it must have been pretty early in the day still, because almost no one was there. The math was easy enough that it didn't overwhelm her - given the time they'd left Portland, it would be about . . . oh, six o'clock in Italy. Maybe everyone was still at work.

Out on the street Ezekiel pointed to a white building with a statue of a man holding a long scroll embedded in its front. "That should be St. Mark's English Church."

Cassandra squinted a bit. "Yup. It is."

He lowered his phone, on which he'd brought up a map of Florence. "You sure?"

"It says 'St. Mark's English Church' on the front."

"Good news." He peered closely at his phone, reading off Italian addresses awkwardly. "Okay. Then this should be Via Maggio, and we need to go behind us to Via dei Vellutini and follow it to . . . Via dello Sprole? And that will take us to Via De - I'm not even gonna try it."

She leaned over his shoulder. "That big one? Gui-ckiardini?"

"Sure, that one." He slipped his phone into his bag and held out his arm again. "My lady."

She laughed and slipped her hand through his arm. "So how far are we from the museum?"

"Looked like about twelve blocks or so. If they had blocks."

They were passing a trattoria, which smelled incredible. "Wow," Cassandra said, breathing in the smell of cheese and warm bread. "Almost makes you forget it's nine in the morning where we came from."

"Nothing wrong with pasta and wine for breakfast."

"Not if you can sleep the rest of the day, anyway."

They turned a corner, and Cassandra pressed Ezekiel's arm. "That's it, right? Via De Gui . . ."

"Via De Guicciardini?" The voice behind them was kind, in addition to actually making the string of letters sound like something a person might say on purpose. They turned to see a man of about fifty giving them a sympathetic smile as he gestured. "Ponte Vecchio, sì?"

"Uh, I think so?" Ezekiel said. "Thanks? Gr- grazie?"

The man waved as he headed off. They continued the way he had gestured, passing a lot more bars and cafes and little shops, until all of a sudden a series of archways opened up on one side with a view to the wide river below, and Cassandra realized they were on a bridge.

"That man said -" she exclaimed. "Ponte Vecchio? That's a thing, right - I mean, that's a famous thing I've seen pictures of?"

"Yup," Ezekiel said cheerfully, focusing on his phone. "It's an old bridge that - literally, it means 'old bridge'. It says it's famous because it still has shops along it. I guess they all used to?"

"And that's what we're on." Cassandra grinned around her in wonder. "What was it called before?"

"Hmm?"

"Well it wasn't called 'old bridge' when they first built it. Was it?"

"I guess not." He scrolled further. "Hey, it says it was mentioned in the aria 'O mio babbino caro' by Puccini. And here are the lyrics." He clicked out of the window with a laugh. "And we can ask Baird what they mean later."

She laughed. "Well, it's amazing anyway."

He pointed just as they were about to leave the portion of the bridge where the river was visible. "Look, I think that's the museum down there on the other side."

"Won't it be closed?" She turned to look at Ezekiel and saw him raising his eyebrows. "Right. Thief."

"It's better this way - at closing everyone gets confused, people going every which way as they try to empty the place out. If we'd come during regular hours there'd be tourists and docents everywhere . . ."

"And you'd have had to get up a lot earlier . . ."

"That too."

"Charlene," she reminded him firmly, squeezing his arm.

"Aw, Baird would come to get you."

"She might come to get _only_ me." 

"Cruel but true." He gestured at the stately brick building in front of them, with tourists - as promised - filing out of the doors. "Here we are. Follow my lead."

"Okay . . ."

Even after they were inside she wasn't entirely sure how he'd accomplished it, a mix of jostling, ducking and dodging, spinning around so that it looked as if he was trying to go the right direction - perhaps being knocked backward by the crowd - when in fact he was moving backward into the museum; and all pulling her along by the hand. They took corners and stairs at a pace that felt breakneck and apparently looked casual.

"Where are we going?" she hissed when they seemed far enough from the crowds.

"Library."

"Wait - the Library -"

"Not _the_ Library. The museum library. It's closed for the night and we need a place to hide out until the rest of the museum is emptied."

The dimly lit library was disappointingly boring, like any other academic library.

"Ours is better," Ezekiel said, echoing her thoughts. "Anyway, over there near that corner."

While they waited, Ezekiel pulled up the museum's floor plan on his phone. "What we need should be in Room II."

"Astronomy and Time," Cassandra read from the English guide. "What are we looking for?"

"Apparently one of the astrolabes has a secret stone or something embedded in the back. My book wasn't very clear what it's for, but when I asked Jenkins he made a bunch of grumpy noises so I'm guessing he knows." He swiped the phone's display. "Look, this page says we're near the Piazza Signoria; that's famous, right?"

"I'm pretty sure." Cassandra peered over his shoulder at the photo he'd pulled up. "That big tower looks kind of familiar."

"We should go by there on our way out," he said. "Seems like a shame to be in Florence and not see - ah -" He scrolled down. "A lot of palaces and a whole bunch of statues. Look, David."

She reached past him to pinch open the window until the text was readable. "A reproduction, but still cool."

"So we're on." He checked the time on the phone against his watch. "We can probably go out now."

Room II took Cassandra's breath away, with its array of gold instruments in cases against a stunning blue backdrop. All of them were intricately decorated as well as marked for their intended purpose, Latin words snaking past images of the sun and stars. "This is incredible," she murmured, walking a circle around the room.

"Don't stand there or there," Ezekiel cautioned. His attention was fixed on one particular case. "Cameras. And stay exactly a foot and a half away from that sundial. Or so."

"Oh my gosh, this one's wood." She froze a foot and a half away from it as instructed ( _or so_ didn't exist in her brain), staring at the red and blue painted stars. "There are angels on it - this must be hundreds of years old, and you can still see the paint. And the planetary orbits are -"

"Do _not_ get stuck in math world," Ezekiel cautioned. "Come here and look, this one was made by a student of Galileo."

She was mildly annoyed, but had to acknowledge that a spell would be inconvenient in the middle of trying to enjoy the displays. Obediently she examined the copper plane astrolabe he was pointing out. "Incredible," she said. "These designs - they look like thorns, but the calculations involved . . ." It took a supreme effort to pull herself out of the reverie before it became irreversible - once she started seeing equations it was way too late. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Oh - yeah." He held out a tiny drawstring bag. "Safe and sound. And we should be getting out, if we want to stay that way."

She took one last look around. "Thank you for bringing me." Which - something tugged at the edge of her mind. He certainly hadn't needed any help, and in fact her presence while he was trying to sneak into the museum was probably more of a hindrance. So had he really invited her along just to be nice? To let her see the museum?

"This is the Uffizi." He pointed it out as he tugged her along the street, through throngs of tourists in the gathering dark. "We just have to go around it."

He didn't have to tell her when they found the Piazza Della Signoria - despite not being much of an art or architecture aficionado, she stopped in her tracks when the square came into view. The buildings were brightly lit, and the statues Ezekiel mentioned were literally everywhere - on top of fountains, tucked against buildings, or just sitting there in open air.

"So I know it's not dinnertime where we came from, but it's got to be lunchtime, right?" Ezekiel said.

Cassandra checked her watch. "Brunch, anyway."

"So why don't we check out one of these cafes with the outdoor seating? Good place to sit and watch for a while . . ."

She shrugged and let him lead her. "Sounds nice. I'd almost forgotten it wasn't actually nighttime for us."

He went straight for one particular restaurant. Before she could wonder how he was so confident about that one, he was striding up to the man at the door and rattling something off in what sounded _almost_ like possibly Italian.

The man beamed and replied with something like "congratulazioni" as he gathered menus and gestured them toward a table out in the piazza.

"Did he just congratulate you?" Cassandra whispered.

"On getting through that sentence, I think." Ezekiel prodded her ahead of him. "Go on."

"How _did_ you learn -" but she was being ushered into a chair with a perfect view of the piazza, and from somewhere a glass of red wine was already appearing.

Ezekiel picked up his own glass. "It's after five o'clock somewhere - here, in fact."

Did they seriously just hand a glass of wine to everyone who walked in? Cassandra hadn't spent much time in Italy - basically just their short-lived "visit" to the Vatican and then an excursion to a power plant that she thankfully didn't really remember - but somehow she didn't think so. And who chose the wine? She opened her mouth to comment, but Ezekiel cut her off.

"Happy birthday!"

Feeling a bit like a carp, she closed and opened her mouth again a couple times. "My birthday's next week," she finally said, which was less gracious than she intended.

"I know. But next week you might have been expecting, or suspecting something. This way it's a surprise."

"Did you . . ." Things slowly slotted into place. "Did you invite me along just because it's my birthday?"

He grinned proudly. "Yup."

"And the museum - did you even actually have a case?"

"Yes, I did. The stone, like I said." Under her stare he added, ". . . but I actually retrieved it last week. Gave me the idea."

"So we broke into the -"

"Sshhh!"

She lowered her voice. "We broke into the Museo Galileo just to see it?"

"Yup."

"And you've been to this restaurant before?"

"No," he said. "No points for that one."

"So how -" Oh dear lord. "Did you - you actually asked Eve where we should go? Didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," he said without embarrassment.

"And she told you what to say?" Now the immediate service - and the mystery wine - made sense, along with his sudden . . . well, she couldn't call it "proficiency," but there had been some Italian spoken. "We actually had reservations."

"Which Colonel Baird made." He seemed, in fact, more pleased with himself than embarrassed that he'd gotten their Guardian to make them restaurant reservations in Florence. She had to give him credit for the balls.

"What - what did she say?" she sputtered.

"Nothing at all. I'd expect a little hassling later, though. For you. Not me. I'm being very nice."

"I -" He was, and she'd momentarily lost sight of that fact. "This is really sweet, Ezekiel. And - I am definitely surprised."

"I could tell by the shock."

She softened. "Thank you. This is definitely the best birthday I've ever had. And it's not even technically my birthday."

"Really?" His look was cheeky. "No one else has taken you off to Italy for your birthday before?"

"Okay, you can be just a little bit less smug." Smiling, she turned her attention to the menu, which was definitely all in Italian. "Did Eve also tell you what we should order?"

"Obviously."

Thank God. 

"And," he said, not looking up from where he was carefully comparing something on his phone with the menu, "isn't it a fortunate coincidence that we have to go home through a gelato place."

"Coincidence, huh?"

He lifted his head. "And also we have the rest of the day off. Because we probably are going to pass out after we eat this."

Okay, she could admit it. Definitely best birthday ever.


End file.
